Specialized and High Road Sports - the company behind Team HTC-Columbia (Team HTC-High Road) - have entered into agreement and announced that the men's and women's Team HTC-High Road will ride Specialized bikes and wear Specialized helmets starting with the 2011 season and continuing beyond 2011.

"We are thrilled by this foundational partnership with the iconic global cycling brand of Specialized," High Road founder Bob Stapleton commented and added "Mike Sinyard is an authentic entrepreneur and his company is a dominant force in both professional racing and bringing innovation to millions of recreational cyclists worldwide. Our partnership is focused not only on athletic success but also on developing superior products and promoting cycling as a part of a healthy lifestyle for the more than 160 million enthusiasts in Europe and the USA alone."

"We come together with aggressive plans and motivated partners who are excited about the compelling sport of cycling. We want to further build on this platform and recruit leading technology and lifestyle companies to work alongside our existing partners, which include HTC, Shimano, Oakley, as well as our marketing partners Google and Skype. Together, we are focused on adding a long-term, innovative co-title partner with naming rights in advance of the major races this summer, including the Tour de France," Stapleton added.

Specialized's Mike Sinyard is equally enthusiastic about the partnership. "I've always respected Bob (Stapleton) and the teams he has built. Our organizations have a lot in common: Their team headquarters is just down the road from ours, both crews focus on riders' needs first, and we've both achieved great results that are fueled by the love of cycling. High Road will drive us hard to continually improve our bikes and helmets, and we'll deliver the best materials in the world to help them win races."

Specialized will supply Team HTC-High Road's frames, forks, and helmets. The HTC-High Road men's squad will race the S-Works Tarmac for most road races, the S-Works Roubaix for cobbled classics, and the Shiv TT in time trials. The all-new S-Works Prevail and TT3 helmets will protect the riders in road and TT applications, respectively.

"We are especially excited about the HTC-Highroad women's team, which is every bit as strong and successful as the men's squad," continued Sinyard. "Through close work with these top-tier riders, we can continue to grow and improve the performance and fit of our women's bikes and equipment."

The 11-strong women's squad will race on Amira road bikes, built specifically for high-performance riders and racers, and Shiv TT bikes for the time trials. They will also wear Prevail and TT3 helmets.

The idea for a bike manufacturer to work closely with a pro women's team is not new. The pro cycling team Cervelo TestTeam was founded with the purpose of allowing bike manufacturers and bicycling equipment manufacturers to gain important knowledge from both male and female pro cyclists and incorporating knowledge obtained from these pro riders in the development of new products.

"The close partnership with Cervelo TestTeam clearly helped many of the sponsoring companies increase the speed with which the companies moved up the learning curve and also helped some of the companies extend the learning curves for their various product types. This happens at a time where a lot of investment capital has gone into cycling equipment research and development and where new technologies are now being exploited to an increasing extent," Roadcycling.com founder and bike industry analyst Thomas A. Valentinsen commented.

Valentinsen added "We've seen years of rapid changes to bikes and equipment and bike companies are now finding it harder to produce ground-breaking innovations. Therefore, bike manufacturers such as Specialized and Cervelo, but also bicycling equipment manufacturers such as Specialized, Castelli, Rotor, and SRAM are seeing an increasing value in the product feedback gained from pro cyclists who spend numerous hours on their bikes and know more about the advantages and disadvantages of bikes and equipment than engineers working in front of laptop monitors. I am certain that Specialized will be able to gain valuable insider knowledge from Team HTC-High Road's male and female riders through its partnership with the team, if the company truly understands how to obtain such knowledge from pro cyclists."

Specialized is currently sponsoring Team Saxo Bank-SunGard, but after previously being the World's best pro cycling team the team has recently suffered several setbacks including the loss of important riders such as World Time Trial Champion Fabian Cancellara and Andy Schleck and Frank Schleck. The team then signed Tour de France Champion Alberto Contador but with the recent doping accusations against Contador the team sponsorship has lost important value for Specialized. It is therefore clear that there was a need for an additional team sponsorship for Specialized, which will also make it easier for Specialized to withdraw its sponsorship of Team Saxo Bank-SunGard and Riis Cycling if the team falters because of either doping accusations or lack of valuable race results in major races.